Auscultation, the process of listening to the internal sounds of the body, has historically been performed with acoustic stethoscopes. Many different forms of such a device have existed, most notably those comprised with a two-sided chest piece linked with branched hollow tubing to two separate ear pieces. Such devices use a diaphragm to transmit high frequency sounds to a doctor's ears, and a bell to transmit the low frequency sounds. However, the common acoustic stethoscope lacks the ability to digitize sounds for further medical use.
In recent years, many electronic stethoscope models have appeared in the art. Such devices largely resemble acoustic devices with the major difference being in the head. The electronic heads often have digital displays, and house components for noise amplification and recording. Signals can be sent wirelessly to a computer, and some models allow for the direct recording onto removable memory devices. Some models pair with a smartphone application to display images of recorded sounds that can later be edited and attached to medical records using proprietary software, but these models do not analyze patient sounds to provide decision support. Wireless versions present in the art, which comprise of a head physically removed from the hearing device, also lack this analysis capability. Furthermore, the computer-based medical record systems associated with these electronic stethoscopes also tend to be in competing, proprietary formats, reducing the abilities of doctors to collaborate over large distances. What is proposed then, is a mobile-based electronic stethoscope that can serve as a decision support tool based on an analysis of the sounds and the capability to interact with multiple electronic medical record platforms.